Nancy Glass Productions Adds Archion 32TB Synergy Storage

A television production company that offers a creative style for cable programming, broadband and the web, Nancy Glass Productions (NGP) recently added Archion Technologies‘ Synergy solution to their Unity MediaNetwork to store increasing amounts HD content and streamline its file-based workflow.

According to Jason Saro, Senior Avid Editor and Unity MediaNetwork Administrator at NGP, the decision to add a 32TB Synergy UXE system was based on choosing the quality and cost-effective storage solution to handle entirely tapeless productions.

"In an era of tight budgets, it’s absolutely essential to make the right buying decision," said Saro. "We have eight edit suites filled with Avids and a 32 TB Unity, so it was a big decision to bring a third party like Archion into our Avid setup. However, by choosing the Synergy UXE, we added much more fully protected storage to our Unity than if we went with Avid storage. The Synergy UXE was a wonderful solution at less than a third of the cost, yet it maintained our high standards of quality, performance and data protection."  

Saro explained that NGP is now working more in HD and that their storage needs have grown exponentially while their production timeframe has not. Each half-hour episode of a show, for example, can be shot entirely in HD over the course of two to three weeks and then take a week or so of edit time.  

"Working with HD, bringing it all in file-based and natively, you need lots of storage," Saro said. "With the Synergy UXE, we didn’t need to invest in a new shared storage platform, and we got the benefit of 60% more usable storage than mirroring. That was very compelling to us."

Saro was also impressed by the ease of setup that the Synergy UXE offered as well as its integration into their file-based workflow. All Synergy systems are pre-configured so they can just be plugged into the storage port on a Unity and a data set can be added or created.

"With the highest capacity storage available for the Avid Unity, Archion’s Synergy UXE offers a can’t be beat cost/benefit ratio," said Michael Coxe, Senior Account Manager at Applied Video Technology, Inc., Archion’s reseller in Malvern, PA. "We love giving our clients solutions that work perfectly and cost less than what they’ve budgeted."

"We are delighted that Nancy Glass Productions understood how our Synergy UXE provides RAID storage to their Unity system without compromising workflow and performance," said Daniel Stern, Archion’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "We see more and more facilities moving to Archion and our Synergy line as they appreciate the multiple benefits it brings to their Avid Unity shared file systems."

The Synergy Line
Archion’s line of RAID storage for Avid’s Unity MediaNetwork and Media Engine platforms has thousands of clients worldwide. The Synergy UXE and new Synergy XTR extend the Synergy’s abilities to a 800 MB/second and increase its capacity to an amazing 32TBs in a single chassis for Unity Media Engine (5.x). It is also certified for use with Unity MediaNetworks (v3.5 – 4.2x) and is compatible with other Archion-certified Unity add-on storage systems.

Synergy storage systems deliver 8-, 16- or 32TB of storage in a compact three-rack unit design with a 16-drive chassis. With its built-in, highly intelligent hardware RAID controller to manage storage more efficiently, the Synergy UXE and Synergy XTR automatically rebuild a faulty drive so that the rest of the network is unaffected by the drive failure.

With the patent-pending Vdisk technology, Archion ensures compatibility between versions and that operation is transparent to the Unity system. The Synergy UXE and Synergy XTR RAID controllers manage the disk drives, RAID sets and Vdisks in a more efficient manner, requiring fewer drives than Avid storage subsystems to deliver higher capacities and resolutions.